


Before My Spring

by incredibaek



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Baekhyun-centered, Depression, Depressive Behaviour, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, Non-Famous AU, Suicide Attempt, a lot of angst to cry to, baekhyun is honestly so broken, chanbaek is not too important here for the first few chapters, im so sorry, kinda a diary, real life story, this is just very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-03-24 12:01:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13810761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incredibaek/pseuds/incredibaek
Summary: Autumns are Baekhyun's biggest fear until one autumn his fear becomes reality.





	1. The second of September

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this is very very sad and based on a real story with just a few details changed. If you are sensitive and were looking for some nice fluff then this is definitely not recommended for you.
> 
> If you decide to stay, though, I hope this fic changes your mind a bit. I'm going to try to keep it short but you never know how it will go with me and my inspiration. There will be 3 more chapters besides this one and an epilogue afterwards. Have a nice read!

It was the second day of September when Baekhyun started to feel it. It didn't seem right at first. More like an ilusion his mind created for him to believe he was fucked up, which he, indeed, was. It came in a tsunami wave when he didn't expect it. An overwhelming pain while on painkillers. A hangover without drinking an ounce prior. A bruise without being hit.

Back then, he didn't know what was happening to him. All he knew were his broken soul and the ashes, leftovers of his burnt heart that once loved and hated so passionately it slowly died out of emotions.

This was different to anything he ever felt or experienced. Like the whole world collapsed, literally, onto his belly when he was laying in his bed, making it impossible for him to even get out of it in the mornings. Like the weight was still there when someone finally decided to pull him out of the bed by force (Baekhyun didn't even notice who in particular), except this time it rested on his shrunk shoulders, making every step very difficult, impossible even, to take. And whenever he did take a step, he felt like collapsing back onto the ground, whether it was on the marble in his kitchen or on a pavement in the street.

He blamed no-one but himself.

It started to become more and more prominent, the heaviness, until a date came when he stopped noticing time passing. Hours turned to minutes and minutes to seconds, and soon entire days passed, weekd even, and Baekhyun found himself in the same spot as before, usually in his bed, laying on his back and staring into something that didn't exist. His hopelessness.

It was in a way difficult but also very, very comforting - no expectations, no deadlines, no shame; except there was a lot of them but Baekhyun could no longer acknowledge them. He started to feel the aftermaths of disappointing people all over again but he never knew why he did it, or when really. The consequences came in a tsunami wave when he didn't expect it. An overwhelming pain while on painkillers. A hangover...

His life started to revolve in circles around his sleeping hours, which extended from a not-so-good 5 hours a day (that he was used to when he still considered college something worth waking up for) to at least 14 hours a day in one long slumber at night and many shorter naps during the day. That left him with only 10 hours of survival, not necessarily only and just but as many as 10 hours. He didn't eat much to try to look skinnier and prettier so that others could like him. He spent days staring at things that did not exist and burning scented candles in his room all alone.

Sometimes he found himself actually thinking about what was happening but days became one very soon and Baekhyun could no longer differentiate mid-September from the Halloween period.

His family gave up on coming and trying to lure him out of his cave, he no longer had any friends. That lead him to being in that state for two months up to the point his college sent him an official dismissal letter that claimed he was not interested in his course anymore so he was no longer considered a student. They kindly proposed for him to re-apply next year if he found new interest in the course. He ripped the letter apart absent-mindedly and burnt it in a white rose scented candle he was just about to finish up.

November meant Thanksgiving but he had nobody to be thankful to so he closed his door with a key and (not fully consciously) ignored any shouts from outside the door begging him to come down for dinner. The rest of the month was almost as blurry as the entirety of October, which could have been easily erased from history without Baekhyun even noticing.

In December he received very brief and short-term help from a psychologist from his college that he no longer attended. Apparently his mom called her and asked the woman to take care of Baekhyun because he was in a bad state. She kindly asked him to explain where in his life he was at the moment and he just said he lost his friends. Nothing about the blackouts, the lack of will or strength to do anything or the incredibility of his own memory and perception. He couldn't fully understand so she couldn't either, he was aware of that. She told him to talk to his friends and ask why they left him. He thanked her and left the room. That was it for the help he got from his school.

Baekhyun found himself wondering and wishing again. He wished for people to disappear, for his hopelessness to disappear after a while too. He wondered if he could ever wake up without tears threatening to fall out of his eyes until they actually did because he was too tired to fight them. But at least he was wondering and wishing, which was way more than the passive existing he'd grown used to already.

He approached his friends, first the leader of this shit of a group with a fake smile and a shrug that never seemed to leave his shoulders. He told Baekhyun he never meant to replace him. That, in a way, meant that Baekhyun could just come back to his friends and be fine again, except he was no longer the Baekhyun that got betrayed by his friends. He could not find any resemblence between those two not so distant figures. So he nodded with a wide smile not honest at all and left with a quiet thank-you on his lips.

Talking to others was almost the same except now he knew what to expect. After a talk with the third friend, he found himself wondering why he was even doing that. It was definitely not about getting back to his friends and being happy again because it was now a burnt bridge he could not cross.

He concluded there was, in fact, no valid reason for him to do that so he stopped trying. He found escaping bed in the morning difficult all over again.

January came and with a new year came no change. He spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day alone just like he was to spend his entire year.

He didn't feel older or different. Time didn't really matter when you had no intentions of making the next day any different from the previous one.

February and March were both the same as January, to the point Baekhyun could swear that Valentine's Day was coming in a few days when, apparently, it had passed over a month prior.

April was a new beginning Baekhyun did nt expect. He was invited to his year's prom at his college despite having been kicked out a few months earlier (Baekhyun couldn't recall when that happened really). He had to get in touch with his ex-classmates to prepare many things and to print out pictures for their class album. It was a weird tradition at the college but Baekhyun didn't care too much.

Slowly, though, he did start caring. Small tasks he was given by people who heard about his current state gave him something to distract his brain and therefore resulting in his mind being more down-to-earth than it used to be for the past months.

He found himself attached in a weird romantic-ish relationship with a pretty boy that loved comic books and superheroes, and after a while he loved Baekhyun, too. They went to prom separately but when Baekhyun broke down crying during a slow and emotional song that triggered a lot of bad, bad memories, the boy stayed by his side and comforted him till the very last tear of his dried out. Baekhyun guessed that was the moment the boy fell in love with Baekhyun, and he also guessed it was the moment Baekhyun realised he was too broken and too fucked up to bring this pure, gentle creature down with him to the hellhole of his brain.

He hurt the boy multiple times to make him fall out of love. When they went on a trip together, he made sure to ignore him so often that in the end the boy had no strong feelings towards Baekhyun except hatered.

Baekhyun cried many times after that happened because he was precious and beautiful with a pure soul that Baekhyun knew he could fall in love with. He was in fact so beautiful and precious that Baekhyun chose the boy's well-being over his own happiness.

When July ended and August begun, Baekhyun got into a new college for a brand new course he never even thought about before - Psychology. The semester was about to start next month.

Except next month was September and Baekhyun was almost holding on by then, and the thought of coming back to where he was since the second day of last September made him cry more than before.

Fear soon became his best friend.


	2. The thirty-first of August

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warnings: heavy depression, anxiety, PTSD, implied suicidal thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leave something behind you if you liked this chapter xx

It was the last day of August when Baekhyun felt it again. It was there but it was shushed by hope and his will to survive. He felt it stinging in his heart, like a tsunami, a headache, a hangover, a bruise. It was there again, ready to eat him alive.

Youth is fearless so he tried not to be scared of it. In fact, he tried to embrace it instead. To accept what happened and move on like a normal person would. So he did move on.

On the last day of August Baekhyun made his way to have coffee with five other freshmen from his year (well not exactly his; the new one he was to be taking). They felt like socializing with some people from the year but only six of them turned up. Baekhyun started feeling the stinging just then, his brain telling him it's because of him and his pressence that people didn't want to come to the meeting.

He ignored it; instead, he was trying to make new friends in the people that did turn up.

His past friends were way behind him now, having moved on to a new part of the building so that he hardly ever saw them anymore. It was time to move on for him too.

He ordered a coffee and smiled politely at the people that came. Three girls and two boys (besides him). One of the girls reminded him of the leader of his previous group, with her wide, fake smile that she tried her best to turn into a real one, with her liveliness and that leader aura. She seemed intimidating and annoying and Baekhyun fought with his thoughts not to be hostile towards her.

Other people in the group were great, one of them being Baekhyun's life-long friend whom he met at kindergarten. They didn't speak much because Baekhyun hated his guts in middle school so it seemed reasonable for him to feel hostile towards him now, too.

They talked and talked and the coffee and their laughters soon made the feeling go away out of Baekhyun's wandering mind. He felt sparks in his heart; hope, he thought. He tried to cling onto it as soon as he felt it, thinking that what happened last year was just a one-time occurance and he was now to be happy once again.

They began their freshman year as a group of six but soon the boys stopped caring about them as much and Baek was left out with the three girls instead. He didn't complain – he always felt genuinely more comfortable with women and now, with his stinging memories of past friendship with men, he was more than willing to stick to the girls.

They were laughing and hanging out and at one point Baekhyun started to think: 'I might even tell them about what I went through last year'. He thought they might understand and become his close friends, supporting him when the darkness creeps up on him once again. That was around October of freshman year.

October of freshman year was also when Baekhyun met Chanyeol, the brightest boy in his dark life. He was middle-school friends with one of the three girls he was friends with now and Baekhyun had a gut feeling Chanyeol had a slight crush on the girl. When he asked her about it, she laughed at him and stated the obvious (at least to her) – Chanyeol was gay. Very gay.

Baekhyun started talking to Chanyeol somehow – Chanyeol texted him over some gift for the girl's upcoming birthday party and they took off. There was not a day that Baekhyun didn't text Chanyeol for at least an hour, but there was also not a day that they talked in person at the college; why – Baekhyun didn't exactly know.

It was also around this time that Baekhyun realised something was terminally wrong with him. He found himself snapping at people without a reason, growing to hate people he used to love overnight, pushing away his relatives once again, and Chanyeol and the girls too. He realised something was very, very wrong with him. It was at that time that Baekhyun started to grow suspicions that he might be bipolar.

That felt like a gigantic weight over his chest all over again. He didn't want the girls to know, he didn't want his family to know, and most of all he didn't want to hurt them by making them co-exist with him. That's why he decided to just go with the flow, decided not to tell his friends about anything in order not to make them attached to him, decided to let his dark side push them away when they finally grow tired of his bullshit.

It was December what the leader started to ignore him and exclude him out of their meetings. They kept hanging out together as a four, but he was no longer a part of it; instead, they took another girl from the year into the inner circle and started to push him away slowly.

The leader pushed him away but he didn't argue. The new girl and one of the old girls kept hanging out with him sometimes, talking to him about things that were not important, petty even, and he liked it. He liked having them to talk to over petty matters. The girl that was friends with Chanyeol was stuck with the leader and ignored Baekhyun as if he didn't even exist. Baekhyun embraced the thought gracefully. At least he still had Chanyeol.

Except he didn't – they talked like they were dating but Baekhyun had no idea what were Chanyeol's intentions towards him, so he told him. He told him to stop playing and to let him know when he grew a pair of balls to ask him out.

December was lonely once again and Baekhyun felt like last year's September was coming for him once again. He stopped attending the university once again but it was not as frequent as it used to be a year before – he showed up on two days out of five which was enough for him to pass all his subjects.

Over Christmas, Baekhyun didn't hear from neither the girls nor Chanyeol. New Year's was spent alone, once again, and he was okay. The darkness kept eating his insides and made him sulk into himself once again, but it was fine. He embraced it and made it an inseparable part of himself, just as his nose, his eyes, his pinky fingers and his stomach. The darkness was there and it was swallowing him but right now, right then, it didn't really matter.

The first day after Christmas break, the leader aproached him and asked if she could talk to him so he was hopeful she was trying to settle what was wrong between them. Instead, he heard that he was a horrible and negative person. That she didn't want to know him and that he just hurt all the girls with his presence and his always changing mood, with his trust issues and past problems. (With his darkness, he thought, but she never said that.) Baekhyun left the school building and sat on a snowy bench in a nearby park. That was the first time in a while Baekhyun broke down crying.

He felt like he knew it was coming and he was supposed to be ready for it but you can never be ready for your friends to leave you when you need them the most. Baekhyun's heart was shattered into pieces, pieces even smaller than it used to be in before. His soul started to break, too, and his spirit, and his body started to give in again, just like it did last September.

He didn't want to attend college anymore until the day Chanyeol texted him to meet him because he wanted to talk. Baekhyun agreed.

They went to a park (not the same one that Baekhyun cried in a few weeks prior) and Baekhyun tried his best to smile while Chanyeol did his best to give him the affection he deserved. He held his hand and hugged him spontaneously, he got him lunch and a huge coffee and when he finally asked "what are we, Baek?", Baekhyun took his hand back and lost all his appetite, saying he didn't know. A girl passing by started to laugh at them and he felt angry tears in his pricking eyes. He left by the earliest train, leaving Chanyeol hanging, waiting for an answer.

Chanyeol actually waited. He texted him that he would give him all the time he needed and that was soothing for Baekhyun. He knew that he couldn't do it to Chanyeol and that dating him would be very, very selfish, though he couldn't help the feeling that started to root in his heart for the only person that didn't leave him alone in his darkness.

On Valentines day Baekhyun became Chanyeol's and Chanyeol became Baekhyun's.

Baekhyun was still afraid of the diagnosis he might get from the psychiatrist once he decided to get help so he never went to see him.

Some kisses and confessions later, in March, Chanyeol became impatient, asking Baekhyun to see a doctor. Baekhyun got angry and broke up with him. Chanyeol didn't fight.

In April, Baekhyun tried to get Chanyeol back, knowing it was truly love that he felt for the man. Chanyeol ignored his messages and treated him like air when he tried to approach him at school. Baekhyun gave up. He knew it was just what he deserved for being fucked up.

May was when Baekhyun gave up and gave in to his darkness once again, with his anchor gone and hating him as well. Baekhyun was on his own with his darkness once again. He couldn't get out of bed and function once again. It was September all over again, this time in May, two years later.

He gave in to the darkness and started to think, for the first time, that maybe it was his destiny. Maybe he was supposed to feel like this. Maybe he was supposed to be dead by now and it was his punishment for not giving up. He felt all the weight on him all over again and this time, it was suffocating. Almost like he was drowning with no idea which direction was the surface.

He started to think that maybe dying was a good solution after all.

The night he thought that for the first time was the night he slept a peaceful night without any nightmares for the first time in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next three chapters are going to be very, very intense, and I'm sorry in advance if I break your hearts. It breaks mine to write it too :(


	3. The seventeenth of July

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: implied death by suicide, suicide thoughts, anxiety, depression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just to make it clear - no actual suicide takes place in this chapter. it's an implication i'm warning you about

It was the middle of July, probably something around the 17th, when Baekhyun stopped attending his singing classes. With that, the choir that he was a part of, decided to stop informing him about what was going on in there, even though he was a highly respected tenor there. Therefore, in August, Baekhyun made a decision to officially quit the choir and turned to dancing instead.

In the meantime, one of the girls from his group, the one that was the closest to the leader, got very close to him. He grew fond of her when he heard her story; how she could never leave a person that needed her, and the leader needed her a lot because she was a very broken girl on the inside. He also heard about how she used to be bullied because of her love for dancing. He learnt that in June of the same year, that's why his parents believed his decision to leave singing and turn to dancing was stupid and reckless and influenced by his strong feelings towards the girl. They knew he was gay, though they didn't neglect the power of friendship and believed that it was all her fault that he gave up on seven years of practice. They were wrong.

But besides his constant fights with his parents, the summer was relatively calm and peaceful. He didn't have to face people from the school, including the leader but also his old friends that started all of that. It was in fact so calm that he decided to share his fear of autumns with the newly-made friend. (For the sake of the chapter, Baekhyun decided to call her - "Her".) When he shared that with Her one night, and it was a sleepover, Baekhyun could remember clearly, She hugged him tightly and swore to try to be the best friend She possibly could for him. And he believed.

With Her by his side, it kind of felt like he could have the world. He forgot Chanyeol, he forgot the leader and a lot of bad things that happened to him in this shitty life. But he never stopped feeling that. It used to come to him like usually - a tsunami, a headache, a hangover, a bruise. It was just t h e r e and all he could do was to say: "Okay, well, that's just how I am - fucked up". It was then more difficult to do than the previous year, though, because this time it was accompanied by a silent, uninvited guest.

Sometimes the guest would wear an obnoxious, gigantic black dress, black tear stains on their cheeks due to heavy eyeliner on their eyes. Those days were the days when Baekhyun could actually resist inviting the guest into his house and his heart.

But there were also times when the guest would wear the latest collection of Valentino suits, whichever Baekhyun decided to put on them, and those days Baekhyun would find it very, very luring to let the guest in.

The guest was mostly silent, just a sad smile on a pale face, tired eyes and chapped lips. Sometimes, though, when they spoke, it stayed in Baekhyun's mind for days, and it made it almost impossible for Baekhyun to kick them out sometimes, but he always succeeded anyways.

The guest went by the name Solution, but Baekhyun knew their real name was Suicide. When they wore the ugly dress and looked like a pathetic widow, Baek remembered the real name as clear as day, but whenever the guest looked handsome and attractive, he found himself forgetting for a while and thinking that maybe, just maybe, their real name was, in fact, Solution.

It was not that difficult to say no to the guest at first because She was always with him. He talked to her whenever he needed to, he wrote books and diaries when his darkness was too much even for himself, so he survived the summer. Then, late August, the guest started appearing more and more often as a tall, handsome man, very attractive and inviting, and that's when he set his mind to see a doctor. That was when he finally let himself look for help that he deserved.

He told Her first and she cried. She cried because She was happy for him and for herself too. She started making plans. They took another dancing girl into their tiny friendship in September and then they became an inseparable trio of The Dancers. (The new girl was to be called Friend in this story - Baekhyun decided.) She made even more plans - that they would search for people and start a dancing group. He was excited and anxious at the same time, but that was also when he started seeing his doctor.

Everything looked as if he was going to survive through this autumn - September was over, then October, then November began and everything was fine. The guest came everyday but he never let them stay for too long. He had his two best friends, a dance group and good grades. He felt that maybe this time it wouldn't end in a tragedy.

Oh. But it did.

It all started when Friend said she would miss the fourth training in a row, and he got angry, and She obviously took Friend's side. The therapist told him to talk this over with them but he didn't listen - at the time his pride was more important to him than the friendship because subconsciously he knew it was bound to end like all his other friendships. He became distant and when they finally talked it over, he felt like he couldn't be with them anymore. They were so nice, so calm and cheerful, and then there was him, a dark and fucked up person, and he felt like he was just doing them harm by being with them. He grew distant and they didn't fight.

It all got even worse when one of his favourite dancers died. On the 18th of December, he gave in to the same guest that's been hunting Baekhyun for months. He didn't have Her or Friend to hold on to because they gave up on him way before that. He didn't trust his therapist anymore. That's when he gave in to the guest himself and stayed in the darkness for a very long time, such a long time that one day more would have been too much for him and he would simply be... dead.

But he wasn't.

He found the strength within himself, and this time instead of waiting for others to save him, he saved himself from his darkness and from the handsome guest. He saved himself from dying.

He spent New Year's Eve alone, again, but he was okay about it. After New Year's he changed his doctor, opened up to non-serious friendships and acquaintances and started to slowly turn the guest down more and more firmly everyday until one day, for the first time in half a year, the guest didn't come at all.

Chanyeol came by his life once again, this time in April, and he asked him for a second chance. Now that he was recovering, now that he was fighting for a better life, he knew he could try to be h a p p y with Chanyeol. He said yes.

Chanyeol was of great support and help to him in everyday life, and when he told him about the guest, about his demons, about his entire past and darkness, he didn't hug him like She did; instead, he nodded and said he understood, because there was nothing he could possibly do that would make Baekhyun feel better about himself and his life. Baekhyun knew that day that he was in love with Chanyeol with everything he was and had, so he told him. And it turned out Chanyeol loved him, too.

Though his love was not enough for the guest to disappear. He fought it for a year and a half with Chanyeol by his side, with ups and downs, until one day he gave in. Until one day the guest came in the shape of Chanyeol, his love and safety, and Baekhyun gave in for weeks. Weeks that were enough to take his breath and heartbeat away in a hundred and three sleeping pills and half a litre of whisky.

But before his spring came, he spent a beautiful year and a half with a beautiful smile, unique ears and tons of sweet, sweet words whispered into his ears when he was about to fall asleep. And this time was more important than Baekhyun's loss to the guest, he believed. However, the next chapter of his book still has to do with the fight with the guest, and with the darkness, and with his past.

It's about the only time when Baekhyun felt really happy, about the time he spent with the love of his life, Park Chanyeol. But it all never left him for real, even then, and it has to be mentioned where necessary.


	4. The thirteenth of October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING
> 
> This chapter contains a very graphic and emotional description of suicide, self-harm and medication overdose. If you feel uneasy by reading this kind of content, please stop reading the chapter once you reach the warning of the beginning of the scenes, and proceed to end notes to read a less graphic summary of what happened not to lose track of the plot.

It was the thirteenth of October when Baekhyun realised it all.  
Chanyeol was Baekhyun's only source of hope and will to live. To take another breath, yet he was the one to take it away all the time. To open his eyes on another day, yet he was the one to make him close them when he kissed him slowly and passionately, like he was the only thing in the world Chanyeol ever knew. To keep his heartbeat steady, yet he was also the reason to make his heart race. To keep his heart going at all, yet he was the one to make his heartbeat stop when he looked at Baekhyun with nothing but unconditional love in his eyes.  
Chanyeol was the centre of Baekhyun's life, to the point when it became even unhealthy, but neither of them cared.  
Baekhyun could see darkness all around him despite Chanyeol bringing light to his life and now he was even more afraid of it than before. The winter hit his face multiple times with freezing wind blows, frostbites took over his once beautiful palms and wrists, the snow burried him to the point he could no longer breathe on his own. Then the sun shone and made it all bearable. Chanyeol was there for him.  
One night, before they even got back together after Baek went to therapy, he wanted to end his life. He wrote two letters, one filled with beautiful but heart-breaking 'thank you's, and the other as the letter of all his reasons to die.  
Number one: my best friends left me once.  
Number two: my new best friends left me, again.  
Number three: i no longer had any friends but they still left. again.  
He knew his reasons were overall stupid and irrelevant but his brain screamed: "Let go, let go already," and he could no longer resist the sweet temptation of really l e t t i n g g o. He knew there was probably no afterlife, and if there was, he was going to burn in hell forever for taking his own life, but it was all better than what he felt then. He felt empty, hollow even, like a wreck that's not even filling with water, just sinking. Looking perfectly fine but sinking deeper and deeper until it dies entirely.  
He was about to turn off his phone and pack his backpack with a rope, the letters and his favourite childhood teddy to have something to make him smile for the last time. He was just about to end it all when he got a message in the group chat with Chanyeol's peers and himself (he still had no idea as to why Chanyeol added him there because he hardly knew him - well, maybe that's an exaggeration but they were definitely not close enough with each other to share pals and underwear with one another, at least that was what Baekhyun thought).  
Chanyeol sent them his phone number and said that they can call him anytime if they need help with anything or just feel like talking to someone.  
Baekhyun took his chances and made the call with shaky fingers and tears streaming down his red cheeks, but Chanyeol picked up so cheerful and he was talking to someone else on the other side, telling them to leave the room so that he could talk to whoever was on the phone with him in private.  
"Okay, okay, I'm here. What's up? Who's calling?"  
Baekhyun only sobbed. He forgot that Chanyeol got a new phone and no longer had Baek's number on his new one. He wouldn't either. They were just exes after all, only now getting back to being friends.  
"Umm... Are you okay? Can you tell me wh-"  
Baek ended the phone call and turned off his phone. He wanted to go and do it, to stop being a burden, to die right there and then, but he somehow fell asleep. He slept peacefully and tightly, funnily enough for his state at that moment, but when he woke up, he got anxious. He didn't want to give up. He wanted to take his chances and turned on his phone only to see 107 missed calls from Chanyeol himself and 12 messages, the last one saying: "Call me when you get that. Please, whoever you are, I'm here with you. Just call me back when you can. I'm sorry".  
So he called once again. And he sobbed once again. Then he told Chanyeol it was him calling and Chanyeol sounded like he wanted to cry too. They spent over three hours on the phone, just crying and sharing thoughts, and Baekhyun finally told Chanyeol he wanted to die. Chanyeol broke down crying.  
Ever since then, Baekhyun's darkness seemed to lighten up a bit every single day because he spent it with Chanyeol. In April that year, Chanyeol became his and Baekhyun became Chanyeol's for the second time. And this one was to last for a very long time.  
It actually did, at least to Baekhyun's heart - they lasted as long as his life, and even afterwards when Chanyeol engraved "beloved boyfriend" on his grave.  
But before that happened, Baekhyun spent many happy moments with Chanyeol. They shared secrets and daily struggles, midnight confessions and small snacks between their tight schedules, hearts and souls. They talked on the phone when they couldn't see each other, and chatted for hours when they were together.  
When Baekhyun met Chanyeol's mother, she turned out to be the sweetest and warmest woman he'd ever met in his life. She welcomed him like he had been a Park all the time, not a stray Byun that happened to cross paths with her son. That day Baekhyun felt like he had a place in the world, and besides Chanyeol's arms, it was his home too. He knew he wanted to belong to Chanyeol, to share his life with him, to be there for him like he was there for Baekhyun. That's why he stopped thinking of suicide for that moment.  
The darkness faded so much he no longer could see it. His life seemed happy and peaceful now but it was his fault for believing it could ever stay like that. It was his own fault to believe the darkness was gone just because he couldn't see it.  
It was when Chanyeol left for a trip with his college friends and he couldn't breathe one night, on the 13th of October. He called Chanyeol but was only reminded by the answering machine that Chanyeol was not there for him this time. It'd been over a year since they got back together and he kept ignoring his darkness, he kept ignoring the issues within his own brain, he kept pretending he was normal..  
Then it hit him all over again, like the first time, like nothing had changed throughout the span of 4 years. It came in a tsunami wave when he didn't expect it. An overwhelming pain while on painkillers. A hangover without drinking an ounce prior. A bruise without being hit. It started all over again and this time, there was nobody to hold him tight throughout the storm.  
His fingertips felt numb when he gently touched his scars, his battle scars, for the last time. He didn't want to let go just yet, he wanted to hold on for a few more days, weeks maybe, but he knew he had to let himself breathe. He had to let himself be free and to do that, he had to kill his brain that was his greatest enemy.  
Baekhyun knew he had to do it to ever allow himself to be happy. He knew he had to let go to let others move on as well. He wanted Chanyeol to be happy and carefree in his life, and he knew he was not one to provide him with a future like this.

WARNING: THIS PART MIGHT BE TRIGGERING TO SOME AUDIENCES AS IT PORTRAYS SUICIDE

Drowning one hundred and three sleeping pills might be tiring when you take each and every one separately with your shaky fingers, name it after each one happy thing in your life and swallowing it only after making sure it's not enough just yet to say goodbye permanently. The first one was his first meeting with his first friends. The second one was this beautiful song he heard once, he thought it was sang by Jonghyun and the title was Before Our Spring, but he was not really sure. The third one was the painting in the living room of his childhood home that presented a bouquet of dead roses.  
The last one was for Chanyeol, his one and only love, his ray of sunshine and the only thing that kept him alive for this long, for him to see so many beautiful things that he wouldn't have if he had died that one night he called Chanyeol. The last one was supposed to be special.  
He wished to just pass out after taking the last one and to disappear from existance without having to anxiously wait for it to happen. But it was not anything like the movies. He was not drowning in his own tears, he was not sobbing violently and he did not drop suddenly to the floor, dying right there and then. He didn't cry. He kept shaking but his face was still, with no emotions nor signs of fatigue. He felt normal, he knew he had to do something to finally go, to make it all go quickly.  
He was so close to taking this tempting whisky bottle and drowning it to the last drop but he made himself stop in his tracks and took a notebook instead. He didn't write any "thank you" letters nor any "i blame you" letters this time.  
He wrote a short, beautiful letter to his sun, to his Chanyeol, saying all of the things he wished he could have told him before. Before his spring came.

"Dear Chanyeol,  
I love you. I love you to the moon and back, and even if you think otherwise because of the fact that I'm dead by the time you read this, I want you to know I really do love you to eternity. What I did was a result of my own battle with my brain that screams all the time, saying how this is all an illusion. You don't really love me, I can't really dance, my life is actually a failure. I have to win the battle with my brain. To win the battle, you have to kill the oponent, even if you end up dying too.  
I will see you everywhere you go. I hope I become a flower in your garden or a lightbulb in your living room lamp. I want to see you move on, get married, maybe have kids if you want that. I want you to help yourself just like you helped me.  
You saved me so many times in so many dark places. I could not be here, writing this to you, if it wasn't for your heart, your soul, your self. You are a beautiful person, Chanyeol. Please, do not ever doubt that.  
I'm sorry you have to find me here as the first thing you see after your trip. I couldn't risk you trying to save my life.  
I love you, Chanyeol.  
Baekhyun"

There was one more thing he had to add before he could end the letter so he added a post scriptum at the end with his last bits of consciousness.  
He could hardly see by the time he finished the letter and he knew it would all happen soon so the whisky was only an option now since he was going to go soon anyway. It still ended up in his hand and he drowned it in the span of a minute or two.  
He sat down on Chanyeol's bed and placed the letter on his night stand. He was wearing Chanyeol's favourite outfit of his - a striped shirt with black jeans and his black sneakers even. He made sure to look pretty so that Chanyeol does not worry much about him suffering while dying.  
He lost his vision first. It all became black suddenly; no gradual vision loss nor the light fading. Then he could no longer move his body, he could no longer feel his back on the matress. Then there was a pause in the loss of senses and for a second, Baek could focus on the smell that was still in his nostrils - vanilla and musk, Chanyeol and Chanyeol's apartment. Then it was taken away from him too.  
He couldn't feel tears on his cheeks anymore nor could he taste the salt on his lips because all was gone except for his hearing.  
He heard cars outside the window and the air conditioner buzzing quietly in the room. He heard a bird and then he thought he heard something he couldn't have possibly heard; keys in the door lock.  
He couldn't give it a thought because with the second his hearing left him, he turned to void himself. He was no longer a body, no longer a spirit.  
Baekhyun stopped existing as such to himself. There was no "self" anymore.  
When Chanyeol found him minutes later, he was already cold as ice and gone forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending summary: Baekhyun decided to take the pills separately, each by each, to remind himself of happy moments in his life. Then he wrote Chanyeol a letter which will be included in the last chapter (the next one) in an extended version. Then Baekhyun drowned the pills with whisky and minutes after, he died on Chanyeol's bed, looking intact for Chanyeol not to worry about him suffering before death. Chanyeol was already at the door when Baekhyun died and the last thing he heard was Chanyeol's keys in the lock. Chanyeol came in to see Baekhyun already cold and dead.
> 
> Don't give up on this yet. Read the last chapter too; it will be very telling.  
> Also leave a comment behind if you read this - I'm very anxious about this chapter because I'm afraid it feels rushed :c idk


	5. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something surprising in this chapter, I think - but do not hope for a happy ending, because those do not happen in life.

Dear Chanyeol,  
if you're reading this, I am dead. Today is the 3rd of March and today... I'm planning to take my life away.  
We're exes, I know that. But there is nobody left in my life anymore and I do not know who to tell all of this... So I decided to write it down.  
These are just ugly, rushed notes of all that lead me to my decision. Notes of feelings, mostly, because these were what killed me the most. Actually, it's all very... general, I know. But you also know me way better than you think you do so you will manage.  
If you're reading this and I'm dead, I want to ask you a favor - there is one thing I always wanted to do but never really succeeded. Ever since I was little, I wanted to write a book. A book that's touching and yet didactic, something to let people know that there is always a way to everything. I want you to write about what I've been through, what I did and how I felt, but do not change my ending.  
The ending should be real, just like all of the previous events. This will not show people there is always a way like I wanted it to, I know. But I also know people learn from others' mistakes sometimes. To me, what I'm doing seems like the only solution, and I know it's stupid and every person reading what you'll write will probably agree with you - you will all see that I was not a lost cause, just like all of the people that have killed themselves in the past thinking that they no longer had any meaning in this world.  
What I see is different from how people see me and my life.  
Maybe if I wasn't so alone. Maybe if I actually asked for help, if I let anyone help me. If I called you in the middle of the night saying that I need you... Maybe then I could have lived. But since you're reading this, I did not.  
I want you to write everything that happened as it is, no secrets and omissions. I want all the lost causes to find themselves in me and see that they actually had another ways. There were other solutions.  
I wish I could read someone's life like this right now. Maybe I would see myself in the person and tell myself 'Oh lord, why did they die? They had so many other options..'". But I can't read anything like this. Not now, not ever.  
Chanyeol, I know I've told you before but I really really like you, still. Even though I hate myself, I still love you. I hope you can share my story, share my life with others, I hope you can do me this one last favour.  
Thank you,  
Your Baekhyun

P.S. If you ever get this, it means I didn't die on that third of March. You saved my life over a phone call on that day. And I will be forever thankful for that, despite what happens in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this; it was a very hard fic for me to write and I hope it turned out well-written.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment and/or kudos if you liked this. This is a completely new form of writing im trying out and I feel quite insecure about it so yeah


End file.
